Gulf Guardian Award Winners 2004

Business Category - 2nd Place

Summary: Offshore waste recycling projects were attempted
in the past by many different companies with varying results, but most
were ineffective or abandoned. Tech Oil Products was part of an unsuccessful
large scale effort in the early 1990’s that tried to make recycling
a permanent practice offshore. For offshore recycling to be accepted and
practiced, a new, innovative, and rewarding concept was needed. A “Win-Win-Win”
formula was devised by Tech Oil Products that provided a means to reduce
and separate the volume on offshore locations, have a deposit bin onshore,
provide transportation to a central location, collect, grade, and account
for the volume received. Recyclable material was given to charities for
resale as income. With Tech Oil’s new process, the company image
and its employee’s win, the environment wins by everyone doing the
right thing, and the community wins by helping out those in need.

Description: What could make recycling work after 12
years of starting and stopping? The management of Tech Oil Products realized
that a new approach was needed, as they had been involved in two attempts
to make this idea a viable concept for offshore operations.

What were the problems in early recycling? The concept of recycling was
once thought to be profitable. In reality, recyclable material does not
pay for the high cost of transportation on land, much less offshore. Today
municipalities have a tax in place to cover the cost of pickup and separation.
A paradigm shift was necessary so that offshore operators understood that
not only would their recycling efforts not be profitable, but the efforts
would also cost quite a bit if expected to be successful. Therefore, a
long-term commitment was needed that would survive personnel changes.
Major oil companies rotate personnel to new positions in management about
every two to three years, new cost-cutting management could end the recycling
program all together. Therefore, a long-term agreement was required to
spread the cost over a longer period, providing for an “acceptable”
daily cost.

Tech Oil established a central recycling facility in New Iberia, Louisiana.
The goal was to recycle rig and platform waste generated offshore in the
Gulf of Mexico. The challenge was to devise a workable plan that both
the CEO of a major oil company and the cook on a drilling rig could implement
and accept.

The goals were lofty: first, there needed to be a long term commitment
from the highest authority in the company to pay for recycling. Second,
there must be a company willing to take on the whole endeavor, from building
the equipment necessary to reducing the volume of waste offshore, having
bins available at each dock site, picking up and transporting waste to
recycling centers, checking, grading, and delivering the recyclables to
a non-profit organization for them to sell, and employing the handicapped.
Tech Oil Products took on this commitment and is currently servicing 23
offshore locations.

Today, if you count the people on the rigs and platforms, there are approximately
1,400 participants. If you consider that every week, another crew takes
over, the number is doubled. ARC of Iberia employs more than 200 people,
of which 20 are dedicated solely to the Recycling Program. Under the “Recycle
the Gulf” program, 626,440 pounds of cardboard, tin, plastic, aluminum,
and paper have been collected. The environmental impact of this effort
is enormous.